NONENDOSCOPIC CASES OF FOREIGN BODIES IN THE TONSIL

Abstract

Every rhinolaryngologist has been consulted by patients who, while eating, have had something lodge in the throat, which they could feel sticking them. The question arises, What shall be done by the physician who does not care to employ endoscopic procedures? Among the many foreign bodies found in the faucial and lingual tonsils and in the lymphoid tissues of the pharynx, fish bones are more common than all the other forms combined. Other substances, such as toothbrush bristles, toothpicks or slivers of wood, spicules of some of the long bones, plant stems and occasionally some form of metallic foreign bodies, are found. These foreign bodies are introduced through the mouth, in contradistinction to the tonsillolith or calculus of the tonsil, which originates from within the tonsillar crypt, but which may give rise to symptoms suggesting the lodgment of a foreign body. ETIOLOGY As all of these substances are introduced from